US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome in our great country.”
Rubio alleged in an article on X: “Ebrahim Rasool is a politician who lures America and hates America.”
“We have nothing to discuss with him, so he is regarded as the character, nongrata,” Rubio wrote. Announcing someone’s character, nongrata (PNG), is a harsh diplomatic condemnation that usually forces them to leave the host country.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called the decision “regrettable” and expressed his commitment to building “mutually beneficial relations.”
“The presidency urges all relevant and influential stakeholders to maintain established diplomatic etiquette in their interactions with the matter,” Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.
Rubio’s post is linked to an article by right-wing news outlet Breitbart about Rasool’s comments on Friday’s think tank about Trump’s election and presidency.
The PNG manifesto against Rasool is the latest chapter in the decline in relations between the United States and South Africa. Tensions exist between the two countries under the Biden administration, but since Trump began his second term, the United States has taken a series of punitive measures against South Africa, which has been criticized not only by Trump but also by his ally Ally Elon Musk, who was born and raised in the country.
Both Trump and Musk claimed that under what the South African government calls a land reform policy, white farmers in the country are essential to correcting the legacy of apartheid.
In comments that seemingly triggered Rubio’s role non-Grata (PNG) manifesto, Rasool is discussing the “continuity” and “discontinuity” of the Biden administration.
“Donald Trump initiated an attack on the current, the power of the people, through the supreme attack on the current at home and the current abroad,” Rasour said.
He said the movement response that made America great again was “not only a response to supremacist instinct” but a shift in the U.S. demographic”, “In the U.S., voters are expected to become 48% white, and the possibility of most minorities looming”.
“So there needs to be taken into account so that we understand something we think is instinct, instinctivism, racism, I think for example, there is data that can support this wall, deportation, etc.
Rasour said Musk had been involved in far-right British politics, and Vice President JD Vance met with a leader of a far-right German party before the election.
“Then start talking about what the role of the Afrikaans in the whole project,” he continued. “It’s obvious that the white victims are treated as dog whistles.”
In January, South Africa enacted the Expropriation Act, which attempted to remove the legacy of apartheid, which created a huge difference in land ownership among its majority of black and small minority of white people.
Under the leadership of apartheid, non-white South Africans were forcibly deprived of white people of their land. Today, black people in South Africa make up more than 80% of the 63 million population, with only about 4% of private land.
The expropriation law gives the South African government the ability to take the land and redistribute it – if the seizure is found to be “just, fair, and in the public interest, there is no obligation to pay compensation.”
Ramaphosa said the legislation would “ensure that the public can get landing in a fair and just way.” But the White House disagrees, and Trump and Musk believe that land reform policies will discriminate against whites in South Africa.
The policy prompted a strong response from the Trump administration.
In early February, Rubio announced that he would not attend a meeting of 20 foreign ministers in Johannesburg, saying: “South Africa is doing something very bad.”
“Solicly private property. Use the G20 to promote “solidarity, equality and sustainability.” In other words: DEI and climate change,” said the top U.S. diplomat. “My job is to promote the national interest of the United States, not to waste taxpayers’ money or anti-Americanism.”
A few days later, Trump suspended aid to South Africa, accusing of discrimination against white farmers. The president said in the same executive order that the United States will “promote the resettlement of government-funded racially-based discriminatory South Dutch refugees, including racially discriminatory property.” Trump said in a social media article: “Any farmer from South Africa (with family!) seeking to escape the country for security reasons will be invited to enter the United States of America as quick citizenship.”
